Bledsoe hesitated, sensing a trap. Was it really going to be this easy?
The interrogator took a step closer.
'Well?'
He nodded.
'I'll talk to Byrne. No one junior to him.'
The other man nodded and glanced round the assembled faces. The smiles were wider now, displaying contempt, amusement and bad dentistry in equal measure. The man from the car shook his head, pulled a cellophane pouch of Drum tobacco from his trouser pocket and began to roll a cigarette. As he licked the paper the thin, broken-nosed man turned away, took a 9mm Browning automatic from the pocket of his boiler suit, considered it for a moment, then swung the butt backhanded and with full force into Bledsoe's broken ribs.
The pain was indescribable, an explosion of liquid fire in his chest that seemed, once again, to drain the FRU man of all coherent thought. He fell forward, hanging from the tailgate by his cuffed wrists, and for a moment saw himself as the young Provos surrounding him saw him a pallid, bloody faced flabby-arsed forty-fags-a-day chancer, close to his pension and closer to tears. As an agent handler Bledsoe's world had become that of his informers a world of beer and bar-stools and clapped-out cars.
He had fitted in well, but at the cost of his health and fitness.
'There's no disguise like a fat gut!' the instructors had told them at Tregaron, and Bledsoe had laughed along with the others.
Now look at him. Pathetic.
Something still beat in his chest, however, even as he hung there wheezing and gagging. Some ghost of the bloodyminded squaddie he'd once been still hung grimly on. There'll be afuck of a bang when the lads blow that door. Afuck of a bang. And the killing spree of all time.
None of these Provie cunts would live to .
A hand grabbed Bledsoe's hair and pulled his head level. Through a film of pain he saw a short, square figure walking out of the office area, a figure whose reddened and bony features, slicked-back hair and carefully buttoned Aran cardigan he recognised instantly.
'Would ye be knowing this gentleman?'
It was the gun-butt man again.
'Yeah,' said Bledsoe, attempting to sneer.
'Val Doonican.'
That earned him another kick in the balls and this time, as a lurching despair became one with the pain, Bledsoe kept his eyes shut.
The man in the Aran cardigan was Padraig Byrne.
No Det unit was about to follow the fucker anywhere.
He was already here wherever here was and he had probably been here for days. When Bledsoe finally reopened his eyes it was to see Byrne pulling on a boiler suit.
'Pleased to see me, Sergeant Bledsoe? You will be, that I promise.' The voice was light and cultured, and somehow horribly at odds with the raw-boned features. The considered view in Lisburn barracks, Bledsoe remembered, was that Padraig Byrne took it up the arse.
'You see, Sergeant, we've got something for you.'
A book hit the ground with a thump next to the FRU man's feet. What the fuck?
'Raymond John Bledsoe,' Byrne continued in his soft wheedling brogue, 'this is your Death!'
There was snigger of sycophantic laughter from the young Provo foot soldiers. Opening his eyes a fraction, Bledsoe saw that the book was a Yellow Pages directory for the Newry and Mourne area. He hadn't crossed the border, then. There was still hope.
Please God, he thought, let Wheen have hooked afollow car on to that taxi. Let there be a Regiment team out there right now, taking out the sentries.
He hung on desperately to that hope. He suspected that the interrogation was about to start and he didn't know if he had any courage left to bullshit them with.
It was going to be very bad he was certain of that from the number of young guys they'd assembled, and from the hunger and expectancy on their faces.
And then, with a blast of cold air, the sliding doors opened again and a mud-spattered white van drove into the barn, shuddered for a moment in a haze of exhaust and was still. The barn doors were quickly dragged shut, then a terrible high-pitched screaming issued from inside the van. The screaming seemed to go on and on, and ended in a sound that was haW way between a retch and a whimper.
'Do you recognise that voice, Bledsoe?' asked Byrne, continuing his Eamonn Andrews impersonation.
'Yes, all the way from Lisburn barracks, Belfast, it's your old friend ..
A second naked and plasticuffed figure was dragged from the back of the van by two more boiler suited Provo foot soldiers. He had been severely beaten around the head and upper body, dirt and vomit smeared his chest and legs, and his face was a shapeless blood-smeared mask. In the middle of the room the foot soldiers kicked the new arrival's feet from under him and he fell heavily to the ground.
Byrne looked on, enjoying the moment.
'Good evening,' he addressed the man on the ground.
'And thank you for joining us on this special occasion.
'Fuck you!' said the fallen man. At least that's what Bledsoe guessed that he was trying to say, but something horrible had happened to his mouth and teeth, and all that came out was a bubbling, gutter al rasp.
Bledsoe stared. Tried to beat back the worst of the fear.
With an immense effort the battered figure squinted around him, found Bledsoe, and winked one blackened and swollen eyelid. As he did so his face took momentary shape and with a sullen jolt of recognition all hope died in Ray Bledsoe.
'That's right,' crowed Byrne exultantly, resuming.
'It's your old mate Connor Wheen!'
I'm dead, Bledsoe thought dully. We're both dead.
Byrne watched them, delighted with his coup. A chair was brought from the office and the two men hauled Wheen into it, forcing his cuffed hands behind the backrest.
'I know what you're wondering,' said Byrne to Bledsoe with vast good humour.
'You're wondering if you're still north of the border, so that your SAS pals can drop in on us. Well, you know something .. .' Byrne shook his head at the sheer hilarious ness of the situation.
'You're not!'
Bledsoe felt his sanity slipping away. All that remained now was terror, pain and death. His unhinged gaze found the pale aced man, who stared back at him with ageless, unsmiling intensity. You are in hell, that gaze told him. Welcome.
Byrne turned to the pale-faced man.
'Joseph, as we agreed earlier, I'd like it to be you that does the killing.' His tone was casual, conversational.
'Please,' whispered Bledsoe.
'I'll tell you everything.' His lips were papery and his voice was a submissive monotone.
'You can have the Det list, the SAS list, the tout list, the codes ..
Padraig Byrne frowned and looked at him intently for a moment or two as if wrestling with some complex moral or intellectual issue. Then he smiled again and turned back to the pale-faced man he called Joseph.
ONE.
Sierra Leone.
After an hour's march, Captain Alex Temple held up his hand and the patrol came to a cautious halt.
Above them the waning moon was obscured by lurid bruise-coloured rain clouds. In the forest to either side of them insects drilled and screamed. It was fifteen minutes after midnight and all six men were soaked to the skin. They were sweating too, as their dark-accustomed eyes scanned the clearing.
Alex had been right. Above the distant booming of thunder, just audible, was a faint staccato crackle.
Gunfire, surely. To his side, all but invisible in the dank shadows, Don Hammond nodded in agreement, showed two fingers two clicks ahead -and pointed up the trail. Yes, thought Alex with fierce joy. Yes! This is what I
